HDD: An update for subscribers 💞 plus cozy / sexy books & comfort films 🥰
Enjoy x
FYI - this post begins with some writing about grief, but please feel free to skip down to the recommendations and memes (look for a picture of Belle from Beauty and the Beast) if that’s what you need today x
Hi friends,
It’s been a while. How are you holding up? I’m… up and down.
As some of you will have read, we lost our Mum a month ago, and are still very much in the depths of grief at her sudden and unexpected departure.
You’ll have heard that grief comes in waves. As with most aphorisms, it both cuts to the quick of things and also completely fails to communicate the truth. Waves are intermittent, but also reliable. There’s a pattern. A set and a lull. Watch the ocean for a minute and you quickly come to know when to expect a crest, crash and foam.
Grief’s waves arrive without warning.
Often, there appears to be no trigger - one moment you are fine, the next, crying open-mouthed in the shower. Even stranger, the lulls are not just periods of stillness, where grief wanes and, in its place, leaves a kind of peace or even numbness. Often there is joy. Life continues, you make dinner, send emails, read your book. You bask in the feeling of sun on your skin and laugh at some stupid joke until tears trail down your cheeks.
Sometimes, you forget you’ve lost anything at all.
And then comes the wave. Even more debilitating for all of this: its unexpectedness, its scale, the joy it rode in on.
I’m trying to take things day by day, aware that there will be periods where I am capable and vibrant, and others where I cannot manage a thing. Today is one of the better days - and so I’m writing to you.
Back when Mum was simply unwell, when I was sleeping every other night in a hospital chair, still hopeful she might recover, I paused paid subscriptions for Truly Melody Deeply. It was the right call - I couldn’t have managed a regular newsletter through all of this, and it wouldn’t have felt right to keep charging people when they were getting nothing in return.
But now it’s less clear to me what the “right” call is. I feel ready to write to you again, but I can’t promise to do so every week. I might have pushed through illness, exhaustion, even burnout to write before, but I cannot push aside my grief. The pain — when it arrives — demands surrender.
And I don’t want to pretend everything is fine. I need to surrender to this process, in order to properly heal.
But I’m also aware that the whole point of TMD was to offer a warm hug in dark moments, and poetic musings on grief don’t exactly fit that bill. I’m certain I’ll return to writing for comfort and entertainment eventually. But maybe, for now, that warm hug could be something we offer each other?
Here’s the plan for TMD for the next wee while.
From today, I’m going to resume paid subscriptions.
Those who can afford to remain paid subscribers will still receive the Hump Day Dispatch and Off The Record periodically, as well as anything else that feels too personal to share widely. You will still have access to the ❤️🔥 BANGER VAULT ❤️🔥 - my mega recommendations spreadsheet, which features books, movies, podcasts, recipes (and very shortly - tv shows) beloved by either myself or one of my interview guests (ie David Farrier, Emily Writes and Hera Lindsay Bird).
If you can’t afford to continue your paid subscription, there are a couple of options:
You can cancel, and maybe return later, when I’m posting more regularly.
Or you can email me at melodygracethomas@gmail.com (or leave a note when unsubscribing), and I’ll gift you a 6-month paid subscription.
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: if you want access to the paid version and can’t afford it, just reach out. People rarely do—and I get it. I know the shame that can come with financial hardship.
But here’s the thing: while paid subscriptions genuinely help me get closer to financial independence, gifted subs don’t cost me a thing. I’m no worse off. In fact, it’s an ego boost—knowing someone values the work enough to ask. It adds to my subscriber count (even if not my bank account), and I’m all for that.
So please reach out if this is you (if you insist on giving something in return, you can buy me a coffee. You might be the first to do so! But please don’t do this unless you really want to / can afford it).
If you’re somewhere in the middle—financially stable but not ready to commit to a sporadic newsletter—you can grab a one-year subscription for 50% off, if you sign up before Wednesday, July 16.
Now that’s out of the way… let’s get to what you really come to the Hump Day Dispatch for: killer recommendations and stupid, stupid memes.
This one’s open to all, so free subscribers can get a taste—and upgrade or reach out for a gifted sub if it’s your vibe.
First up, books!
I’ve been reading a lot recently, and a couple have really stood out from the rest.
On the weekend, my gorgeous friend and books editor for The Spinoff Claire Mabey handed me The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. I subscribe to her newsletter, and had seen (and purposefully avoided reading, to avoid spoilers) her recent post about the book - and knew I would probably love it from the title alone.
I finished it this morning and found myself clutching it to my chest, not yet ready to leave the world it had drawn me into. It’s gorgeous—sensual and erotic, but also sinister and stressful. As Claire notes in her piece, there’s a shift in narrative perspective partway through (which I did not see coming), which subtly reframes everything you’ve read up to that point. The sex writing is brilliantly done. It’s very Portrait of a Lady on Fire-coded (which, fittingly, Claire also watched soon after finishing the book…)—full of both yearning and pain. If you loved Portrait…, you’ll enjoy The Safekeep. If you’ve experienced neither, you’re in for a treat.
The other book I churned through was The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst.
Had I not been going through what I was, I might never have picked up a ‘cottagecore romantasy’, but it was exactly what I needed. Not too demanding, gorgeously cosy, grounded in a love of books and nature, and clear in its conviction that humans need connection in order to thrive. If you’re after an escape from life (and you want that escape to feel like a toasty fireplace or jam on hot buttered toast) this is the one for you.
In my search for comfort I also watched a couple of great movies!
The first was One Of Them Days - a buddy comedy featuring the adorable Keke Palmer & my musical fave SZA, in her onscreen debut. It was very funny! Great girls night watching (or on your own while devouring a “share” sized bag of MnMs, like me).
I also arrived incredibly late to the Nora Ephron party.
Ephron’s name is one I’d heard but didn’t really know (forgive me cinephiles)… But now I know she’s responsible for so many of the feelgood greats - ie When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail.
Using this list as a guide, I found Julie & Julia, a film starring Meryl Streep as legendary chef and TV personality Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a frustrated New Yorker determined to cook all 524 dishes in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I love them both, the movie was exactly what I needed. Plus Stanley Tucci plays Streep’s longtime lover and their chemistry is a sight to behold.
Stupid meme time! Kicking off with one I have both sent to pals online AND physically forced people to look at on my own screen:
Bahahaha. Silly ghostie
As a high school Classics nerd, I really appreciated this one
omgg thalpius stop ittttttttt !!!
And this animated video imagining Gen Z working at 911 destroyeddddd me
Your girlfriend shot you? why? what’d you do?
J’amazing.
Finally, back in the real world - which continues to be achingly beautiful - the kids called us all outside on Monday night to look at the moon and we were NOT disappointed!
Apparently this phenomenon is called a lunar halo, and it’s caused by the refraction of moonlight through ice crystals in high-altitude cirrus clouds. Bloody gorgeous.
That’s all from me for now, friends. Thank you for reading, and I’ll be back again very soon.
Have a cosy, restful week 🍜 🛌 🔥
Love, Melody xxxx
